The present disclosure herein relates to a backlight unit provided with a Light Emitting Diode (LED), and, more particularly, to a backlight unit provided with an LED having a reduced size.
In the case of a non-emissive display device such as a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), a display panel which displays an image cannot emit light by itself. Therefore, such a non-emissive display device is provided with a backlight unit for supplying light to the display panel. Generally, a backlight unit is provided with a Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (CCFL) as a light source.
However, an LED has recently been adopted instead of a CCFL for a backlight unit to improve color reproducibility and reduce power consumption. A backlight unit that adopts an LED as a light source typically consists of multiple light source blocks which emit light, with each light source block including multiple LED packages connected in series.
The backlight unit provided with an LED can be classified into an edge type and a direct type according to the location of the LED packages. Edge type LED backlights have light sources located at the bottom side of the panels, while direct type LED backlights have light sources evenly distributed in the back of the panel. The backlight unit provided with an edge-type LED is currently being widely used to provide lighter and thinner display devices.